Whiskey Lullaby
by Little Creature
Summary: [remade] drunkenness and suicide. three chapters only.
1. Red robin

Whiskey Lullaby: Red Robin

By: Little Creature

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or the song, blah, blah, blah…

**Notes: I had to remake this so it's not considered a songfic. But just as in _Heart_… well… read my profile.

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The only light that shown in the room is the small lamp that sits on the desk. The light was dim. And there he sat over a small stack of open files. He ran his hand through his stark black hair that fell just past his ears. He was still in uniform.

He let a small sigh escape his throat as he hit the desk hard. Concentrating had been getting harder as the years passed by. His mind kept returning to the one girl he let slip away.

He rested his forehead on both palms with his elbows resting on the desk. The lined paper in front of him said the same six words over and over again.

He opened the bottom drawer on his left side and pulled out a silver flask. Under it lies a picture. Slowly he pulled it out as well. The picture had been taken over twenty years ago. The young girl stood in front of a wall of windows. Her fiery red hair fell just past the middle of her back. She wore her short purple skirt, purple tank that shown her mid drift and her thigh high purple boots. One leg was bent slightly and her hands were clasped together in front of her left thigh. She was looking down a bit as her bright emerald eyes looked to the camera and glistened with the flash. Her smile was shy.

Their first date.

They were so perfect together. What went so wrong?

Flashback

He walked into his cold living room to see his beautiful girlfriend sitting on the couch. Her normally cheery mood had been overtaken with somberness. He knew this before he looked at her face. Something was wrong.

"Star…"

Her green eyes fell upon him through the soft glow of the coffee table lamp.

"Robin, I have to tell you something. So please listen."

He looked to her unsure. Something was absolutely wrong.

"I am leaving, Robin."

Suddenly he noticed her bags packed at the end of the couch. Her jacket was ready on the recliner. Her keys to their apartment were sitting on the table by the door.

He didn't know what to say. He just looked at her. He swallowed shakily. Searching his mind, he tried to find anything he could say to make her want to stay.

She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Silently pleading with him to say anything. He didn't.

Starfire got to her feet and wrapped her coat around herself. Taking her bags in her hands she walked to the door and stood in the doorway. She turned to him one last time. Again she waited for him to say something. And again he didn't.

The door closed behind her as she left.

End Flashback

That was over twelve years ago. He hadn't seen her since. She had broken his heart; he spent his whole life trying to forget her. She just didn't seem to care. Just seemed to… put him out and walk away.

He had many relationships since then. All of them failed. There was no one that made him feel like she did. She was everything to him. He felt his life end the minute she walked out the door.

He tried everything to get her off his mind. For a long time he did the whole 'player' thing. A different girl every chance he got. And he got a lot of them. A one-night fling. That only lasted a little over a year.

Then he buried himself in his work. After the Titans had recruited new young heroes, he had moved on to being Nightwing. He still protected the city, but on another level; as a solo act. The bad guys got the worse end of the deal. Robin –or Nightwing, depending on which part of his life you knew him in- took out quite a bit of his frustration on the criminal element.

He tried a number of different ways to keep Starfire from his thoughts. Hobbies, new friends, old friends, new work out routines, anything he could think of.

Then he took up drinking.

Standing up from his desk, he brought the paper he had written, picture and flask to his bed on the far end of the room.

He took his first long swallow of whiskey from the flask that night.

Robin threw himself on his bed holding on to the paper. The picture had fallen unnoticed to the floor.

As wrong as he knew it was, he tried to drink away his misery. And as hard as he tried to stop, he couldn't.

"_That will kill you one of these days, Rob." Cyborg tells him on a regular basis._

"_What's the point in living?" He'd answer back sourly._

He was already dead. He had been bleeding inside for years. Nothing made it stop.

"_There are other ways to get over your pain." Raven would try to reason._

"_None work. At least this drowns out some of it."_

They watched him drink his pain away. A little at a time, he seemed to slip further and further. But no matter what, he couldn't get drunk enough to get her off his mind.

And it was somewhat true. The whiskey made his mind get foggy, causing the image of her walking out the door to get blurry. When he was drunk enough, he was unable to make out her figure in his mind. It was just a purple, red, peach and metallic blur. Without a clear vision of her, he didn't hurt so badly. Subconsciously he always knew she left, but his mind would play tricks on him when he put enough whiskey into it.

As hard as he tried to completely drink her away, it didn't work. He was always drawn back to her. Like a magnetic connection.

He was in love with her. Everything about her. He needed her to be there to stand beside him, like she always did. Hold him through his misery. Tell him everything will work out. But how could she? It was because of her leaving heartlessly, without an explanation that he was in this pain.

He lashed out and a hand hit the night stand next to his bed. The sound of metal on wood caught his dazed attention from the empty flask that made him lash out to begin with, to shift. He threw it on the floor and opened the drawer.

Burning tears ran down his cheeks. _Why didn't I think of this before? No one loves me. No one will miss me. She won't._

His vision was still hazed as he climbed back onto the bed.

His eyes darted around the room fast, trying to make out the furniture. Nothing had any form. Everything melted into something else.

No shape. No form. That was his life. His insides. His heart was shattered. His life in ruins.

He climbed to his wobbly knees facing the headboard.

Convinced his life was already over, he searched the room one last time. _Maybe this is a bad dream. Can I wake up?_ He thought to himself. His empty hand reached for the paper with his own words scribbled on it. The words took no form. But he knew what they said.

_So what if I wake up? Nothing will change. SHE will still be gone._

He felt nothing but bitterness.

But the bitterness he felt was for himself. He let her go. She didn't love him. He loved her. He would always love her. Always. Till his last breath left his lungs.

The tears fell like rain.

_There's no reason to be where no one wants me._

He let the misery encompass him time and time again. Somehow he seemed to pull through. Until the night… the stars were against him. the empty bottle triggered a rage so deep and mixed with so much pain, he just put it to his head. And pulled the trigger.

Holding the paper tightly in one hand, the other lifted to his temple. The tears fell soundlessly.

His hand grasped the paper with every bit of strength his body could muster before everything… his sorrow, love, pain, tears, hate, life… was gone.

He finally drank away her memory. He knew life was short. And so miniscule. But tonight, it was bigger than the strength he needed to get up off his knees. Too drunk. To hurt. Too hungry. He just let the whole world pass him by.

….

"Why did we let this happen?" Raven choked out between sobs. "We knew he was drinking all the time. What kind of friends are we?"

A strong pair of steel arms wrapped around her in a strong embrace. She was glad they did. Her knees almost gave way.

"It's not your fault. Its no ones fault. We couldn't have known."

"But we did know." She whispered. Her hysterical crying had caused her breath to become unsteady. Her voice would only come out in a whisper. "We knew he was drinking himself to death. We knew how much he hurt. And yet we did nothing."

Cyborg said nothing. He felt the same way.

Since the Titans went their separate ways, only Raven, Cyborg and Robin stayed in touch. Close actually. Raven and Robin lived next door to each other in a big apartment building. Cyborg lived two blocks down. Beastboy moved to Gotham to rejoin the Doom Patrol. And they kept in touch, too, talking at least once a week to one of them. And after Starfire left Robin, she moved to Dakota City. None of them talked to her on a regular basis anymore, though. They all let their friendship with her slip. Not really intentionally, but they did.

Every weekend was the same. The three of them would get together at someone's house and mess around. Doing nothing really. And every night Robin would retreat to his own apartment and get drunk. They were always concerned, but like everything else, they assumed this was a funk he just needed to get out of. A short lived phase like so many others he had been through.

"And I wasn't home to hear." Her tears fell harder. "I live the next door over… I wasn't there."

Cyborg's grasp tightened. "Don't do this Rae. Stop blaming yourself."

"But I-"

"No." He pulled her away to face him. Her purple eyes were bloodshot; her face was wet and tearstained, in tortured pain. "You could not have prevented this. Do you understand?" His voice was stern but caring.

"But if I had only been home, then I could have-"

"You could have what? You would have heard the shot. That means you would have been the one to find him. You couldn't have stopped this. Do you understand me? There's nothing you, or any of us, could have done."

More tears fell as another person came into the shade of the willow tree. Her tears were hot. Her body felt like acid.

"Beastboy." Raven whispered. She moved out of Cyborg's grasp and stumbled over to him. She felt weak all over. But she wanted the conversation with Cyborg to end.

Beastboy forced a tormented smile. His green eyes were surrounded in red. His green face was pale. His hands were in his pockets. "Hey, Rae." Even his voice was shallow unlike she had ever heard it before.

Cyborg walked to the grave. The chrome casket had already been lowered. Newly formed tears fell into the six foot deathbed. "Robin."

At long last, Raven's knees gave out completely. Her grief overtook her.

Beastboy caught her and let her lean against his chest as she bawled.

"I can't believe he's really gone." Raven coughed through more forced breaths.

"You? I hadn't seen him in two years." He attempted a chuckle. He knew it wasn't funny, but everybody deals with things differently. And he did it with light humor. Raven knew he was hurting too. They all knew. They all shared the pain.

"I have not seen him in twelve." A soft voice came from behind the three Titans.

Cyborg turned around. Beastboy turned his head. Raven didn't look.

"How dare you come here!" Although still in a whisper, her voice was unforgiving. "They found him with his face in his pillow. With a single piece of paper. And you know what it said?" her voice was so calm it sent shivers down each of their spins. Low and behold, tears still streamed down her cheeks.

Starfire went frigid. "He was just as much my friend as he was yours." She heard her voice but didn't believe the words she spoke.

Raven ignored it. "It said: "I'll love her till I die.'" There was a short pause as they all heard her stumble over the words. And again her voice was in a whisper, dripping with venom. "What kind of friend would do this to someone else they call friend? You caused this. Because of you, Robin is-" Beastboy put a hand over her mouth to stop her words.

"We're all upset. But this isn't Star's fault." Beastboy said softly into her hair. He let a single tear fall on her.

"She's just upset. Robin was her best friend." Cyborg spoke to Starfire, as he placed a hand on Raven's shoulder.

Deep down, the three of them couldn't help but hold Starfire responsible. They knew it was ridiculous and not true. But their pain caused them the need to blame someone. Robin had beaten himself up for years over her. So naturally, they blamed her.

"_I'm not good enough for her love." He would tell them constantly. "That's why she left me."_

"_No." Raven would counter. "She's not good enough for yours."_

_But he would never believe her. _

The words stung. WAS. It was like a confirmation of his death. Raven screamed through tears into Beastboy's chest in utter agony and clung to him with all her strength. Beastboy wrapped his arms around her tightly. His hands had been resting on her arms below her shoulders. He could feel her pain and couldn't help but let more tears fall regardless of how strong he was trying to be.

Starfire said nothing. She walked to the grave and knelt there for a brief moment running her hand across the tombstone. Silent tears watered the grass. _What have I done?_

They buried him beneath the willow. And as time went on among the clouds you could hear the angels singing, a whiskey lullaby.

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**-**LC 


	2. A falling star

Whiskey Lullaby: A Falling Star

By: Little Creature

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or the song, blah, blah, blah…

------ Three years later ------

She stumbled into her house and collapsed onto the couch. It was close to midnight. She heard the clock above her television give a single chime signifying it was ten minutes of.

"I'm home early." Her voice called out to no one in particular. For no one was there. She lived alone. A small house in Dakota City just outside of town. It was quiet. Almost too quiet.

It was early for her to stagger in. Most nights she would stay out till two or three in the morning. But tonight, she kept hearing people talk. The rumors flew all around her. Even now.

"_He convinced himself that he couldn't live without her."_

"_So what did he do?"_

"_Shot himself."_

_Starfire grew tense as she slipped in among crowd. Fear shot through her limbs._

"_She just walked out on him after seven years."_

"_Seven years?"_

_The lady nodded. "With no explanation." _

She found the tears threatening to fall once again as she remembered why she was home so early. But nobody knew how much she blamed herself.

-Flashback-

She stopped at the door and turned to him one last time. _Please say something_. She begged silently.

Nothing. So she left. Once the door closed behind her, she burst into tears. She looked up and down the hall. It was empty.

Raven's door was a few feet away. So she knocked. She desperately needed someone to talk to.

No answer.

_Why can you not be home?_

She brought her bags down to her car and piled them in.

_He had nothing to say to me. Nothing. He did not eve try to stop me._

The tears kept coming as if someone had turned on the sprinkler.

She watched the apartment window through tear filled eyes.

She turned the key and started the engine. But before she knew it, she had jumped out of the car and ran back into the building. Up six flights of stairs and to the third door on the left, she stopped. She raised her hand to knock but backed away.

Against the wall behind her, she slid into a fetal position and cried.

_He did not even care that I left._

-End Flashback-

She had aimlessly walked the park that night, doing nothing but cry once she managed to make herself leave the front of the door. She thought he would come out looking for her. But he never did.

"Why did you not say something? I would have stayed if you asked." She let the tears fall from her eyes as she stared at the blank television.

"I thought you did not care that I left."

The words sounded helpless. _You never tried to call me or find me or ask about me… how was I to know?_

"I loved you so much, Robin." She whispered, knowing no one could or would hear her.

"Because of you, Robin is-" 

Raven's words had hurt her more than anyone's ever could. She never did finish that sentence but she didn't need to. She knew what she was going to say.

Robin is dead.

"And it is all my fault." She sobbed out loud.

She reached to the glass of yellow liquid that was sitting on her side table. It had been there for a little over three hours. The glass was half full. She drank it all.

Since Robin's funeral she had done nothing but drink. It's the only thing that eased her mind. But it made her talk aloud sometimes and other times she just talked within herself. Kind of a one on one conversation.

She tried to limit her drinking to weekends only, at first. But the week was too long and her guilt rose by the hour. So she tried just drinking in the evenings. In the morning her pain was still there if not worse, and a hangover was added on top of it. for years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath.

Soon though, she was drinking all the time.

"Star, is there something bothering you?" One coworker would ask on a regular basis. 

_She would look to her feet and shack her head. They wouldn't understand._

"_We're concerned."_

"_I am fine." She'd whisper. Just fine._

It wasn't true, though. She needed help. A lot of help. She needed her friends to forgive her for what she caused. Robin's pain. Robin's death. Their pain. All her fault.

"I miss you so much."

New tears fell as she slid from the couch to the floor. She crawled into the kitchen and in the cabinet below the sink; she took out a small bottle that was about three quarters full of whiskey.

_I would have stayed._ "I only wanted to know that you loved me."

She unscrewed the cover and leaned back against the cabinets behind her. In her first sip, she nearly emptied the bottle. She finally drank her pain away a little at a time.

"You were always so busy with your work." _ I didn't think you wanted me anymore._

She finished the bottle in mere minutes.

"It is my fault you are dead."

The words stung as she said them. Even admitting them to herself, aloud, didn't help anymore.

She pulled herself to her feet using the counter top as a crutch. She guided herself to the end of the kitchen until she ran out of counter. She fell to the ground.

Her eyes were closed as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

She opened her eyes. It seemed a veil contorted her vision. The room was so blurry, she couldn't make out a thing. But no matter. She had been in this position many times before and therefore knew the path to her bedroom where she would subside until the morning.

She climbed onto the bed. There his picture sat. And she cried again. She never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind. Until this night.

_I cannot do this anymore._

She leaned over the edge of the bed and withdrew a pink duffle bag from under it. The blood rushed to her head and she fell to the floor.

Slowly she regained a small portion of her strength. With a moan she climbed to her hands and knees.

Still unable to see clearly, she felt for the bag that she assumed was in front of her. Finding it, she unzipped it. She slipped her hand inside the bag and slid it over the cold metal that lies there motionless.

She made her way back onto the bed with the crude weapon in her hand.

She knelt there facing the wall behind her bed. She put the bottle to her head and pulled the trigger, figuratively speaking that is.

She glanced down at his picture and tried to make out his face. As hard as she tried, she couldn't focus. She really didn't need to, though. His image was burned into her memory.

Cold tears fell onto it as she picked it up in her empty hand and held it to her chest.

"I love you, Robin. I always have. I always will."

She lifted her hand to her head.

"I am just sorry it took me so long to say it. Too late to fix what I have done."

She closed her eyes. She finally drank away his memory.

The gun fell. She held the picture as close to her as she could. The blood dripped down her cheek.

Life is short but this time it was bigger than the strength she had to get up off her knees.

_I will join you now, Robin. We will be together, again… and forever more._

Her body fell. With every last bit of strength she had left, she clutched the picture to her chest as the last bit of life left her body.

….

"This isn't happening. Tell me this isn't real." Cyborg looked to the new tomb on the ground.

Raven was levitating over it; her eyes were dry but red none-the-less. She felt there were no more tears left. She had cried so hard and for so long after Robin, that now, she couldn't find any more tears.

Beastboy was leaning back against the tree's trunk, with his arms crossed on his chest.

"I'm sorry Star. I never meant what I said." Raven's voice drifted from her lips. With Robin's death, she tried to convince herself there was something she could have done to prevent it. She knew there really was nothing she could have done. But with Starfire, she felt the guilt tear at her from inside. All those things she said to her…

"Raven." Beastboy looked to him. His green hair lay flat from the rain. The willow protected them from most of the storm, but not all. His voice was strained and quiet.

Raven looked to him but not directly at him.

"You know she knew that."

Raven looked to the ground. "But I never even talked to her since… Robin."

"She knew you were just upset."

"I never told her I was sorry." A pair of hands clasped her shoulders.

"Come on, Rae. Stop." His voice was worn.

Raven tilted her head to the side so she could see the metal man behind her.

"I just…" Her voice trailed off.

"At least you said something to her." Beastboy sighed and wiped away a tear. "I didn't even bother to say hi." They could barely make out what he said last. Raven thought it was more a statement to himself than to the two of them. "They found her the same way they found Robin. With her face down in the pillow." A tear fell down his check. "They had to pry the picture of him from her arms. She was clinging to it for 'dear life.'" His voice was shaky.

"Why didn't she tell him? They'd both still be here." Beastboy said quietly. He hadn't moved from his position from the tree.

"We'll never know." Cyborg let go of Raven.

There was silence for a long time. No one had anything new to say; nothing that was worth saying, anyways.

Beastboy walked over to the grave and stood. Cyborg stood a few feet away to the side. Raven had fallen to her knees between the two headstones after Cyborg let her go. He hadn't been holding her up, but she was weak already.

They stayed like that for a long time. The storm raged on. The rain was penetrating through the protective branches of the willow; they were soaked to the bone. Had their eyes not been red, you would not have known they were and had been crying.

A hand appeared in front of Raven. She looked at it for a few seconds. The green looked eerie through the mist. She let her eyes look up to his.

"Let's get out of the rain." His voice was soft. His eyes told a whole story. The hurt rang like a siren. She couldn't bare to look, it reminded her of her own but so much worse as she felt her friends as well. She placed her hand in his as she looked to the ground again. She let him guide her to her feet.

He held on to her hand as they walked away. Cyborg joined them on the other side of Raven. She linked her arm with his. He put his other hand on hers.

"Who lives in Robin's apartment?" Beastboy asked.

"Some newly wed couple. Why?" Raven said sullenly, glancing back at the tree, where two of her friends lie.

"I'm going to need a place to live. That's all."

Cyborg and Raven looked to him.

"What are you talkin' about, man?"

Beastboy smiled. "I'm moving back to Jump City. I think it's about time we all stick together. Ya'know, help each other out."

Raven squeezed his hand. "I think so too. I can't loose anyone else."

They all stopped as the rain let up just a bit. They turned.

The large weeping willow's branches rustled gently in the breeze. The two headstones looked like gray clouds through the haze.

"They're together now." Beastboy said running a hand through his wet hair in an effort to get the water out of his eyes.

Raven said nothing. Cyborg attempted a smile.

They buried her next to him beneath the willow. 

They sighed.

"We'll be with them again, someday." Cyborg said softly.

"Yeah. But I wish they were still here." Raven let one last solitary tear fall to the ground. "I guess we never told them how much we love them."

Once again, they could hear the angels over the clouds singing their whiskey lullaby.

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THE END

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A/N- Love is the strongest of all there is. My only weakness is my friends. I love them more than life… I'm afraid to say, if something should happen to one of my friends… my true friends… my best friends… my life would be over. That is how I see the Titans. Each other is their only true weakness; their only true and final destruction. To love something more than life, you would give yourself in their place. If only to keep them from shedding one tear, feeling one broken heart, to keep one bad dream from their peaceful sleep. Love is my weakness. And as hard and strong as the Titan's are… I see love as theirs as well.


End file.
